.png)
The Secret Sauce Podcast
Helping people build big businesses & live big lives - one ingredient at a time. That's our mission. Welcome to the Secret Sauce Podcast.
The Secret Sauce Podcast
Draw Your Own Map: Lessons From the Unbeaten Path
Most people follow the map that’s already drawn. But the real breakthroughs — in business, in life, in legacy — happen when you create your own. In this episode of The Secret Sauce Podcast, Chad and Lacey explore what it really means to take the road less traveled. From Sarah Blakely’s Spanx empire to redefining how lenders and Realtors connect, you’ll learn why differentiation isn’t optional, how to rebuild stale processes from scratch, and why fulfillment is the best ROI.
Oh, that turned that one off Recording Yep.
Lacey:Record Water, water Clap, let's go. Oh man, I drained that.
Chad:Neary, neary, will you grab me a little water?
Lacey:I didn't drink any of this.
Chad:Oh, that's from there, thank you.
Lacey:Whatever, I watched her backwash in it, hocked a woogie in it, don't care.
Chad:all right, so you want me to start with this hook, yep, and that lighting. I can hardly read. All right, we ready. All right, let's do this. Can I ask one question really quick? Yeah, no, you wouldn't know this your iphone neary.
Lacey:How do I make it real fast? How to make it where it doesn't like shut the background light down and it doesn't go into um? There's a setting like how long until it goes into um background. Do you know I'm talking about? Yeah, it's she'll do it in two seconds. Yep, auto lock, boom, look in there. Never love you. Yeah, thank you so much all right because I kept trying to hit it to make sure it wouldn't do that can I clap now? Whenever you want. I've been waiting on you.
Chad:She does not. She did not say that. Every successful entrepreneur I've met has this in common they did something that didn't make sense until it did. What if the fastest way forward Isn't the obvious one? What if the most scalable, fulfilling and legacy building moves are hiding in the weeds on the unbeaten path? Welcome back, guys. This week we want to talk a little bit about taking the path less traveled. Uh, I know this episode kind of like as we were outlining it. It spoke to you a little bit, right. Is there anything specific that like you're like? Oh man, I'm excited to talk about that.
Lacey:I thought we're doing this at the end.
Chad:No, not, I wasn't trying to get that story. We can start again.
Lacey:Okay, I'm so sorry. What do you want me to say?
Chad:right there, I'm just trying to pull you into like, oh yeah, like I was excited about this because, or like this spoke to me.
Lacey:Oh, I wasn't ready for that, that's okay. I'm like no, no, no, we're not doing my story right now, didn't?
Chad:know, I had to just like give you everything.
Lacey:Everything, yeah, everything Redo.
Chad:Well, okay.
Lacey:So are we going to jump right into the sarah blakely?
Chad:thing then. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what this robert frost is.
Lacey:He wrote robert frost, two roads diverge. I didn't chat gpt did?
Chad:you didn't even read this.
Lacey:Yeah, it's like pick one okay I do love that quote though yeah, what you did in the beginning is fine. You just pointed it to me. I wasn't ready. I didn't know what you wanted all right, we'll start again.
Chad:Um man, I wish I had my phone, will you? Uh, you probably don't want to google something for me right now, do you, I can't, I just what's the path less traveled, quote do you want me to chat? Uh, two, two roads diverging a wood. Quote the full one it's two roads diverging a wood, and I took the path less traveled by, and for it made all the difference in something like that.
Lacey:I've never heard of this before, so you've never heard that. No Two roads diverge, that's all you have to do.
Chad:Full quote.
Lacey:Two roads diverge in a wood and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference, and that has made all the difference, okay this line comes from robert frost's poem the road not taken. Two roads diverge in a wood and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference. Good to know.
Chad:Okay.
Lacey:Now we're ready.
Chad:Okay, we're going to start again. Did you like the intro?
Lacey:I did. Is it too long? No, you did the welcome back after it, which I was thinking, oh, he forgot the welcome back. And then you did it, so I thought it was good.
Chad:Yeah, I just wanted to kind of like, right. No, I like it Okay.
Lacey:I was not ready for anything.
Chad:I can't read that. Okay, Every successful entrepreneur I've met has this in common they did something that didn't make sense Until it did. What if the fastest way forward isn't the obvious one? What if the most scalable, fulfilling and legacy-building moves are hiding in the weeds of the unbeaten path?
Lacey:In the weeds.
Chad:Welcome back everybody. We are talking about the path less traveled this week. I'm excited about this one. It's a little bit not like hey, this one tactic or this one strategy. It's a little bit more of like hey, this one tactic or this one strategy. It's a little bit more of like a mindset maybe, yeah, yeah but it speaks to me like my. One of my absolute most favorite quotes is uh, robert frost, um, from a book.
Chad:But uh, it's, two roads diverged into wood and I chose the one less traveled by and it made all the difference made all the difference and that's what we're talking about this week is um that typically the people that you're seeing having super high levels of success have taken a different path. If you want to take the pet same path as everybody else, you're probably going to get the same results as everybody else, unless you do it like in a crazy, unique way.
Chad:But, typically, the best way to do it is to just blaze your own path right, take a different path. So I love it. I love it. I think we should just jump right into it. We were talking about different stories that we could tell, and there was a famous one that I know spoke to you. So we were talking about the founder of Spanx.
Lacey:Sarah Blakely right, I love Spanx. They're the best thing ever invented. And you know when we started talking about this yes, you know, we talked about her and it's such a good story behind it because she definitely took the road not or less traveled for sure, right, like, and I didn't even know that it started actually not with shapewear, it started with pantyhose and that's where she started seeing that here here's a problem that that people wearing this have and then she just kept on and she kept on. Her story is actually really cool, like it's. It's really fascinating on her not taking money from outside people and how she got help and how it turned into shapewear the best shapewear.
Chad:And kind of created her own industry.
Lacey:Completely, and you know cause. It used to be in the past that shapewear was super uncomfortable, I mean like corsets and stuff like that that you know um and and everybody got away from it. But she wanted something that would help but also be comfortable and be fashionable too, right.
Lacey:Fashionable? Yeah, and she is. I mean, I mean I own. You know, most people think of Spanx and they think of just um, but they, they have everything now dresses and like really nice cat. I mean casual, but also I mean a lot of my work wear is from Spanx, but it's really good quality. But she just completely blazed this path and did what everybody else said is not going to work. Don't do it.
Chad:No one would give her money.
Lacey:Nobody, yeah, no money, and she had to go through and figure it out. In fact, here I just want to like. This part was really, really cool.
Chad:All right. Well, you look this up. This episode is brought to you by Spanx. I'm just kidding. We don't have that kind of money. We don't have that kind of viewership.
Lacey:Okay, so how she changed the industry. We already talked about that. She disrupted a stale category, so very old fashioned, uncomfortable. She brought a modern, empowering body, positive, take on this. But it did open and create a new market. She changed branding and I do remember this. When it started coming out she was direct, funny, relatable. She took away that we needed the models. You know these beautiful, perfect models.
Chad:That nobody could relate to that nobody could relate to.
Lacey:Yeah, and nobody had done that before. And again, she did it all without any sort of funding. So she was rejected, she was underestimated and really just out of her depth on paper. But she outworked the system and she changed it and thank you, because it's now something that I absolutely love. But just a cool story to kind of put this in context context of why, like why, did Robert Frost say that it was the best thing he ever did was take the road less traveled?
Chad:I just think that that's where most people find their fulfillment, because it's like there's not as much joy in just going the same path as everybody else, right, and there's big impact in that. Yeah, I think there's a. There's a ton of reasons, too, and we can get into that, but I wanted to make this a little bit even more relatable. If you can't relate to Sarah Blakely, who now has a brand worth, you know, billions, billions, okay, how do we relate this to lenders and realtors in our space? Or just small business, small, single entrepreneurs, right? So you've got a story in this, I'm sure, right?
Lacey:Yeah, you know, you asked me when was that moment? You know, when we were trying to talk about this. And I'll tell you. I was on a phone call with another lender who I'm good friends with. We coached years and years ago together we were both students together and just chatting with him and figuring out you know how's he doing. And he said actually Lisa, things are different. I shut down all my office space. He's like I had $8,000 monthly. Shut it all down, send everybody home. Everybody works at home. Now I work at home and I love it.
Chad:And I grew up works at home.
Lacey:now I work at home and I love it and I was what he's saying. Yeah, he said I love my family, I got more family time. I do everything, zoom and all this stuff. And he's not the first one I've heard.
Chad:I've heard a lot of people do that and we already know brokers do that right, like real estate is going that I mean so much virtual, like there's a lot of brokers that are building their whole model on being virtual 100, yeah, and not, and.
Lacey:And real estate agents have to. I mean, they go out in the field so much more. They go out and show and they, you know, look at houses and stuff like that. Um, whereas us, like we have to be, you know, in our computer and working on things consistently. But yeah, he all went home, I sent everybody home and it works for him and he loves it and he's not, like I said, the first person I've heard doing this. And it was in that moment that I said I'm going to be different and I'm going to be the last office standing. If it's me, I'm going to hold space still in a professional environment where people can still come in and meet and see that I'm a real human, be belly to belly, be able to go through the process, really learn their story, understand things. And I love Zoom. I think it was great. It came out, you know, when we needed it the most, with COVID and everything, and it's better than a phone call. But it doesn't replace the belly to belly.
Chad:It doesn't replace the human experience of connection with people Absolutely.
Lacey:And in this part of my career, I love that, I love that piece. I don't want it. That's the last thing I want to lose. And so if I have to be the last office like I want to, I want to. That's what my, my different path will be is I will be still having an office and meeting people and directing them.
Chad:You're not going to be the last one standing. I don't think, because I will be you're going to outbid me. Maybe I'm older though.
Lacey:So I could retire. So yeah, I should win this one.
Chad:But I'm I'm a hundred percent with you on uh, making sure that we've got space for people and for our teams too. Right Like the, the collaboration of our having office space for us all to get together. Uh Collaboration of our having office space for us all to get together. Again, the human experience is connection and personal experiences. So I'm with you 100%, but I do think that is our industry is going the hard charging in the opposite direction and everything's going to automation and we're like I still like some of those things, for sure.
Lacey:But yeah, I definitely want to be there. What about you? What would be your story?
Chad:Well, I would say the one that I thought of that hits the most is probably in relation to this podcast I was thinking about. I still remember Mondays is when we're supposed to call realtors, right, and everything's called more realtors. Cold call, just everything by phone, just call, call, call.
Chad:And it made me like you've always hated depressed to think about it like I didn't want to go to work anymore, uh, and so I was like, okay, how can I, how can I go a different way but still try to get a similar result? And uh, in a roundabout way, it's how the roadshow version of the podcast was uh, born, was born yeah, I was thinking about.
Chad:Okay, like how can I get in front of different agents that I want to connect with on a personal level, that I have something that makes you great, what your secret sauce is, and ask you some thought provoking questions? Um, that they would say that people would want to say yes, they'd want to meet with me, and uh. So I'm hard charging in that direction. I know you are too.
Lacey:Yeah, it was a brilliant idea, chad. I just want to talk about that for a second Cause. When you brought this up and said, hey, this is what I'm thinking, just a brilliant idea, for, like, there's so many reasons it's so brilliant, but it was different than everything that we were thinking with the podcast. It was definitely different than what we do, you know, in the mortgage side and how we work on lead gen and spend time in our green time, and it has been fun, like it's so much fun.
Lacey:It's so much fun and it's again these questions and stuff like you learn so much more about people, you feel so much more connected with people. You get to hear their story more and what makes them who they are versus A means to an end. Yeah, Like versus. Hey, how was your weekend? Did you have any open house?
Chad:How can I get a referral from you?
Lacey:Yeah.
Chad:Right, yeah, then it was always I had to come up with some reason to call so I could try to get something from them instead of just giving you know. Uh, giving them a space, giving them opportunity to share, yeah, tell their story Exactly, yeah, so. I've loved it. It gives me a lot of energy, and so that's my best example, I think right now.
Lacey:It's a great example of blazing your own path, for sure.
Chad:So let's talk about a few reasons why somebody should do this. I just came up with three. I think we can make this a pretty quick episode. But differentiation creates demand, right? So you got to zig one other zag, I would say, like it's an action, like identify one area where you've been blending in in your industry and then try to figure out how do I stand out, how do I make this different? You've got to create differentiation, and the best way to do that is to take a different path, right?
Lacey:Okay, hold on. Let's stop on that for a second. Let's talk about-. Trying to keep this short and sweet, I know, but that's really, really good, and you're going to have to go listen to our other couple of podcasts that we've filmed, but we talked a lot about doing the same thing that everybody else is doing. So let's say, if I'm a real estate agent and I'm posting the same things, or a lender we talked about lenders and real estate agents always post, just sold just closed.
Lacey:Another home Just listed Just listed the same, like are you blending in here? So that your one question just says identify an area where you're blending in and figure out how to not blend in anymore. That's so easy, Like instantly. I'm thinking of two or three things that I do constantly, that I blend in. So great tactic.
Chad:A great way to do it is through storytelling. We did an episode on that. We'll put it in the show notes, yeah, so definitely check that out, all right. Number two innovation lives in isolation. Breakthroughs come from original thinking, so rebuild one normal process from scratch, and this is like something you're already doing. How do I just tear it down and completely start over and rebuild something that is different by design? It is different, right, and like a thought process, for that would be maybe your buyer consultation is the same as everybody. As an agent, your buyer consultation is the same as everybody else's, or?
Lacey:your lead intake process.
Chad:Yeah, because everybody's taught a blanket like hey, here's how to do it, here's a successful blueprint for doing it. But once everybody starts taking that blueprint, it starts to blend in.
Lacey:Sure, and you got all the ideas and you know what the outcome is. But to tear that down and just to start from new, like you already know now, the skill right when you're taught, they teach you that. So you know all those skills. But now you know all those skills, so rip it down, start over, be creative.
Chad:Yeah, what do I want the customer to feel?
Chad:Right Is the way I look at that when I'm doing it and I've started rebuilding down a lot of like tearing down and rebuilding processes that are all with that in mind. Like how do I want the customer to feel at the end of that experience, at the end of that interaction, versus what information do I want to deliver to them? Right, because the information is going to be pretty much similar in most people's buyer consultation or lead intake or whatever. It's going to be very, very similar. So that's the DNA that most people are going to have. But if you tear it down and say okay, how do I invoke a feeling in it? How do I make them leave there thinking, man, I feel really heard and seen and like a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Lacey:Yep Right.
Chad:I really heard and seen and like a warm fuzzy feeling, right, I like it. Um. Last but not least, number three fulfillment allows authenticity. So aligned action equals lasting pride. So when you create something that is yours, you're gonna be way more proud of it than implementing something that somebody else does.
Chad:So I know that seems a little weird, because we're on here on a podcast talking to how to help people build big businesses and live big lives. So we're not just giving you one blueprint, right? Because then it's not yours. So I think this episode is unique because it does go against the grain. It does talk about, like, go and create something that is your own and take some frameworks of other people, but make something that is patently yours that you can be really, really proud of. You can get monomaniacal about it and just think, like, how do I make this so unique to me? And that's where you're going to be like obsessed with the details to a point where, when you implement that, you're going to be so proud of it and that pride shows, yeah, cause you enjoy it.
Chad:And your customers are going to feel it.
Lacey:Mm-hmm, I think about you a lot actually when you you say this, because and I know the initial thought came from the book Unreasonable Hospitalities. But when you read that book, Chad, it changed you and it it. This is where I could see you Tearing everything down and recreating it.
Chad:Yeah.
Lacey:And 100 percent wanting to really have an impact and change. If I'm going to, if I'm going to be spending this time with this client or this referral partner or whatever, what's the impact that we're going to have in this time frame? Because it changed you and you want impact in life and everything that you do because of that. And the book didn't like it's not an exact tells you how to do any of that right. Like it just gave you the start, the ideas behind it.
Chad:It lit the fire. For sure I would say Like it lit the flame and then we've been fanning it really hard since then and making it our own.
Lacey:But you've been so much happier, you've been so much passionate, like back to loving everything, because we've done this a long time, like it, so that one right there is, like I can see that living and breathing inside of you.
Chad:Absolutely. It's something I'm super, super proud of. I think that we've we are creating an experience that is unlike any other in the mortgage space. Uh, and like I will take that to my grave I truly believe that it's an experience that is unlike any other and that's something that I can be really really proud about. I have my team can be really really proud about, and it is something that, like, we all talk about. It's like, man, this is super fulfilling Yep, right. And it's hard to get super fulfillment and joy and everything out of using somebody else's blueprint that everybody else is using. Yeah, right, that's great, thank you.
Lacey:I appreciate it. It's a perfect example. Yeah.
Chad:So, closing reflection, you know the road less traveled doesn't just make all the difference, it makes you different. So I think that's a good differentiation. Yes, it makes all the difference. Yes, it makes a difference to take the path less traveled, but it really does. Is makes you different. It makes you stand out in a different way, right? So my call to action on this I would just want to leave somebody a takeaway, like okay, what can I do right now? We've given a couple already like tear some stuff down, whatever. But the very easiest one is just take one off-road decision this week and make it and then share it. I'd love to hear about it. We'd love to hear about it. If you can make one decision, make it your own, take a path less traveled, do it. Let us know.
Lacey:Share it. Yeah, we'd love to hear it. We'd love to hear it. I, the one you said about, think of one area where you're blending in. That's like I'm already thinking. I'm thinking of tons, um, but I'm going to narrow one in. I'm going to text you this week, chad.
Chad:All right, I'm going to hold you to it. I can't wait, all right. So just remember guys, the crowd doesn't cheer for the one who followed the map, they cheer for the one who drew their own map. Nice, so go draw your own map, absolutely. Thanks for listening guys, thanks guys, see you next time, bye, bye.
.jpg)
